quotations on an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivel-chair. Just before noon the phone woke me, and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was

Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other

way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it

seemed harsh and dry. âIâve left Daisyâs house,â she said. âIâm at Hempstead, and Iâm going down to Southampton this afternoon.â Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisyâs house, but

the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid. âYou werenât so nice to me last night.â âHow could it have mattered then?â Silence for a moment. Then:

âHowever â" I want to see you.â âI want to see you, too.â âSuppose I donât go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon?â âNo â" I donât think this afternoon.â

âVery well.â âItâs impossible this afternoon. Various â"â"â We talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we werenât talking any longer. I

donât know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didnât care. I couldnât have talked to her across a tea-table that day if I never

talked to her again in this world. I called Gatsbyâs house a few minutes later, but the line was busy. I tried four times; finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being

kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my time-table, I drew a small circle around the three-fifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think.

It was just noon. when i phied the ashheaps on the train that morning i had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car. I suppose thereâd be a curious

crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust, and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened, until it became less and less

real even to him and he could tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilsonâs tragic achievement was forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage

after we left there the night before. They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She must have broken her rule against drinking that night, for when she arrived she was

stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing. When they convinced her of this, she immediately fainted, as if that was the

intolerable part of the affair. Some one, kind or curious, took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sisterâs body. Until long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up

against the front of the garage, while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the door of the office was open, and every one who came into .